Is Ireland shutting the door to cryptocurrency?

Irish banks are turning their back on cryptocurrency businesses, according to a new report…

It looks as those the Irish banking system is joining those treating cryptocurrency with caution at best, and hostility at worst.

According to a report by the Irish Times, numerous companies offering cryptocurrency services in Ireland have had to seek bank accounts outside of the country, or stop trading altogether. That’s because Irish lenders have been turning away their business.

One example cited is Bitcove, a start-up business from Cork, that had been awarded a ‘best business start-up’ prize, that just happened to be sponsored by the Bank Of Ireland – one of the banks that’s withdrawn those aforementioned services.

We’ve seen this before elsewhere in the world. Back in May, the Polish cryptocurrency exchange BitBay announced it was relocating from Poland to Malta, following Polish banks withdrawing services. That story is here.

The same appears to be repeating itself in Ireland. According to Peter Nagle, the co-founder of Bitcover, “the reasons cited has been that they do not support companies offering cryptocurrency exchange facilities despite the fact they had previously given us an account for this purpose”.

Bitcove has since find alternate banking facilities in Europe.

For its part, the Bank Of Ireland issued a statement declaring that it doesn’t offer banking services for virtual currency exchange platforms (although it will accept virtual currency transactions itself).